Syria conflict anniversary: key dates

More than 140,000 deaths and a half million wounded, millions displaced and a
country in ruins. Over the course of almost three years, here are key dates
that mark how a brutally repressed revolt against Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad's rule degenerated into a civil war.

Syrians walk along a severely damaged road in the northeastern city of Deir Ezzor on January 4, 2014Photo: AFP

4:21PM GMT 13 Mar 2014

2011 - March 15-16: Demonstrations held in Damascus for "a Syria without tyranny." Authorities clamp down on rallies in the capital and in Daraa to its south, slamming an "armed rebellion of Salafist groups."

- March 23: 100 people reportedly killed in a crackdown in Daraa, cradle of the uprising. Protests spread across Syria from April with calls for the overthrow of Assad.

- July 1: Some half a million people take to the streets of the central city of Hama, on successive Fridays in July, holding the largest demonstrations in the history of the revolt.

The army launches a major operation to crush dissent in Hama, killing scores of civilians in a matter of weeks.

- July 29: An army colonel who defected from the military announces the formation of the Free Syrian Army. At its birth, the FSA is mainly composed of army defectors. Later in the conflict, civilian volunteers form the majority of its fighters.

- August 18: US President Barack Obama calls on Assad to quit. Western and Arab governments later impose sanctions.

- October 4: China and Russia veto a UN resolution condemning the Syrian government crackdown on protests. Two more aborted resolutions follow in 2012.

2012

- March 1: The Syrian army regains control of Baba Amr, a rebel bastion in the central city of Homs, after a month of shelling that a non-governmental organisation says killed hundreds including journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik.

- June 30: Agreement reached in Geneva by major powers on a political transition that does not spell out Assad's future. The accord is never implemented.

- July 18: Four top security officials, including Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, killed in a Damascus bombing. Two days later the FSA launches an offensive in which it seizes swathes of main northern city Aleppo.

- November 11: Opposition groups sign a unity deal in Doha and form the Syrian National Coalition.

2013 - June 5: The Syrian army and allies from the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah recapture Qusayr, a key town near the Lebanese border.

- August 21: A sarin gas attack in the Damascus suburbs sparks international outrage. Hundreds are killed and in September, a Russian-US deal to dismantle Syria's chemical arsenal averts threatened US military action.

2014 - January 3: Rebel groups launch an offensive against their erstwhile allies in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), accusing the jihadist group of widespread abuses.

- January 22: Talks begin in Geneva between Syrian regime and opposition delegates at the behest of US and Russia, but end without a breakthrough.

UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi indefinitely adjourns them on February 15.